Volt Becomes World's Best-Selling EV

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

The Chevrolet Volt is the world’s best-selling electric vehicle, followed by Toyota’s plug-in Prius and Nissan’s Leaf, Bloomberg says.

Global EV Deliveries 2012Chevrolet Volt30,090Toyota plug-in Prius27,181Nissan Leaf25,435

Total sales of electric vehicles are said to have exceeded 100,000.

Carmakers and politicians hoped for much higher sales. The U.S. accounted for 46 percent of global sales of electric vehicles. Japan and Europe were tied for second place with 23 percent.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Ronnie Schreiber Ronnie Schreiber on Mar 12, 2013

    It's only been in the past year or so that any manufacturer has sold more EVs than the Detroit Electric Car company did in the early days of the auto industry, about 20,000 units over the course of about 20 years. Offhand I think their peak production/sales year was 1914, with about 4,500 sold. Of course the overall size of the automotive market is substantially larger than it was in 1914. Still, props must be given to GM, Nissan, Toyota and Tesla.

    • Mcs Mcs on Mar 12, 2013

      "Still, props must be given to GM, Nissan, Toyota and Tesla." Don't forget Ford! The Boeing 787 battery incident shows what a great job the auto companies have done in engineering their vehicles. It isn't easy developing a vehicle with lithium batteries and so far they've been relatively incident free. I thought we'd see more problems like the Boeing incident, but I was wrong.

  • Scoutdude Scoutdude on Mar 12, 2013

    A friend of mine recently purchased a Volt and he is quite happy with it so far. He had been considering a Leaf but purchased a Jetta TDI instead since he had been happy with the last one. However 6 mos living with the DSG and it was traded in on the Volt. The thing that annoys me is that after I learned he had purchased it I said you'll have to take me for a drive in it and let me check it out. His son's car then needed to go in the shop and the loaner car could not be driven by someone under 21 so Dad drove the loaner while the Son drove the Volt. Then my son went with his son and he got to drive the Volt. Then last night my wife said she got a ride in it from my friend. I the "car guy" still haven't even got a look inside. :(

  • Vatcha Vatcha on Mar 12, 2013

    EV battery pack question ... From what I've read the cost of a battery pack is about 50% batteries and 50% the rest of the stuff. When it comes time to replace the batteries will you be able to just replace the batteries? Or will the whole pack have to be replaced? Or will it depend on the manufacturer?

    • See 1 previous
    • Scoutdude Scoutdude on Mar 13, 2013

      @SCE to AUX There are companies that "rebuild Prius battery packs, ie put new cells inside. I've also heard that it is not that uncommon for the hard core Prius fans to mix and match cells from different battery packs that have one of tow bad cells in them to extend battery life. The first gen Prius had issues with the seals on the cells so most of them were disassembled by the dealer techs to reseal the cells. One of my friends with a Leaf has been inside his pack to bypass the internal charger for better charging performance and to be able to use a range trailer. It won't take long before the other practices become common for the Leaf.

  • Wsn Wsn on Mar 13, 2013

    Two of the top three aren't EVs at all. But Bloomberg is just a fast news media anyway, so they don't need to care about the difference between ICE and electrical motor.

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